Ireland 2003

| | | |

Ireland 2003

Pam's Irish roots keep bringing us back to the Celtic isle. This time, we spent the entire vacation on the west coast, mostly in County Clare. The weather wasn't very accomodating, so we opted to spend several days at an Irish music festival. Pam took several classes and spent the evenings sessioning with some outstanding players well into the night.

I'm afraid we don't have any pictures of the music festival, but we do have a few from some other parts of our trip. After five visits to Ireland, we had already seen many of the best-known sights, but we did add a few new places to our itinerary, so here are some of the highights...

The monastery at Dysert O' Dea was founded in the early 700's. The Romanesque ruins that we see today date mostly from the 12th century, including the fine high cross (left) which incorporates an effigy of the monastery's founder beneath an image of the crucified Christ. The church building itself has an interesting doorway (above) incorporating a series of detailed head carvings, also from the 12th century.

click here for a short video clip of Dysert O' Dea

The magnificent cliffs at Loop Head were a special treat. It was our sunniest day, and we even enjoyed a clifftop picnic lunch. In fact, Pam is posing at our lunch spot (above) while Eddie is at another equally dramatic location (below).

Corcomroe Abbey (above) was founded in the late 1100's and thrived for well over 400 years before gradually decaying into the picturesque ruins that we see today. Some more handsome church ruins can be seen in the village of Kilmallock (below).

Also, check out these VIDEO CLIPS of two of our favorite sights from previous visits to Ireland:

VIDEO CLIP of Skellig Michael

VIDEO CLIP of Moone High Cross

NOTE: you will need QuickTime to play the above video clips. Click here to download it for free: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/